Principal Clinical Psychologist

Mersey Care Nhs Foundation Trust; Warrington; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust seeks a senior clinical psychologist to lead the specialist perinatal mental health service across Cheshire and Merseyside. You will supervise clinical teams, conduct high-quality assessments, and drive governance, research, and policy development within the service.

You will work within a multidisciplinary pathway and collaborate with maternity, primary care, and third sector partners to deliver integrated care and co-produced service improvements.

Qualifications

• Post-graduate qualification and HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Experience delivering specialist psychological assessments and interventions.
• Ability to lead, supervise and train psychological staff.
• Experience developing policy, service development and audit activities.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments using diverse sources and tests.
• Formulate and implement treatment plans across Cheshire and Merseyside.
• Lead and supervise psychological services and professionals within the team.
• Contribute to policy development, research, audit and service evaluation.
• Support training, CPD and clinical supervision for staff and trainees.

Skills

Specialist psychology

Clinical leadership

Research & audit

Policy development

Professional communication

Education

HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist

Tools

IT systems

Job description

Job summary

To ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality specialist perinatal mental health service to women and birthing people across Cheshire and Merseyside. To advise, supervise and support the assessment and treatment provided by clinical members of the teams who provide psychologically based care and treatment within the service. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research. To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the service. To work in an effective partnership with the clinical service leadership including maternity, perinatal, Talking Therapies, Maternal Mental Health, primary care, Family Hubs and members of other agencies responsible for a client's care. To provide clinical leadership within the established clinical service model and integrated care pathway Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service (SPMMHS) for Cheshire and Merseyside. To establish responsive relationships and collaborate with colleagues in maternity, mental health, third sector organisations, and the regional transformation programmes. To work collaboratively with families and 'experts by experience' and support co-production methodologies to inform service model.

Main duties of the job

Clinical 1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation, and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client's care. 2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client's mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client's problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings. 3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals and groups, within and across Cheshire and Merseyside adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses. 4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group. 5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Job responsibilities

Policy and Service Development 14. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing. Professional Leadership and Management 15. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients. 16. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service. 17. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees, and qualified clinical psychologists. Clinical Supervision, Teaching and Training 18. To provide clinical placements for trainee psychologists and psychological therapists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies. 19. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified psychologists attached to the service. 20. To provide specialist advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the service for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning. 21. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychology as appropriate. 22. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision. 23. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate. 24. In common with all Clinical Psychologists, receive. 25. regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines. 26. Receive specific specialist clinical supervision in psychological approaches in trauma-focused / -related mental health issues and presentations. Research and Development Activity 27. To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the teams operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high- quality care. 28. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature, and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members. 29. To undertake a personal research and development programme and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research as a major job responsibility. 30. To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families. Information Technology 31. To use IT skills as required including updating client records. General 32. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal, and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Post-graduate training that confers HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Registration with Health & Care Professions Council as Practitioner Psychologist.

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
• Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, EMDR etc.
• Post-qualification specialist training in perinatal, maternal or parent-infant mental health

Experience

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Post doctoral supervision training.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across a variety of settings including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Specialist experience in the area of complex trauma- related mental health .
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment.
• Experience of planning and delivering ongoing training and CPD to clinical staff at steps two and three within a stepped care model.
• Ability to meet agreed/specified service targets.

Desirable

• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts .
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Knowledge

• Expertise and knowledge across the spectrum of a perinatal and maternal mental health service.
• Worked in a service where agreed targets in place demonstrating clinical outcomes.
• Knowledge of perinatal mental health national drivers and guidance.
• Demonstrates an understanding for the need to use evidence based psychological therapies and how it relates to this post.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of attachment theory.

Desirable

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised perinatal psychological therapies and assessment methodologies
• Knowledge of models of leadership and experience of applying these in practice.
• Knowledge and understand of maternal and perinatal mental health.
• Knowledge of perinatal trauma and loss.
• Knowledge of perinatal inequalities.

Skills

• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly emotional situations.
• Able to lead a service and make decisions and judgments about the best possible way forward in a complex work environment where the evidence base is evolving
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector.
• Ability to contain and work within organisational stress.
• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi- disciplinary team working.
• IT literate.

Desirable

• Application of research skills in clinical contexts.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).